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Civet of Hare, Chasseur
Procure a medium-sized hare. Cut it into pieces one inch square. Heat in a saucepan two tablespoons oil and add the hare. Season with a teaspoon and a half salt and half teaspoon white pepper; stir well and briskly cook for ten minutes, occasionally mixing; then add one ounce salt pork cut into small square pieces, half ounce raw ham cut the same way; stir well again and cook for five minutes longer. Then add two tablespoons flour and stir well for one minute. Moisten with a gill claret, half pint hot broth or hot water, and one gill hot tomato sauce; mix well. Tie in a bunch two leeks, three branches parsley, one bay leaf, one branch thyme, and add to the pan. Then cover the pan and set in a moderate oven for thirty-five minutes. Add one clove finely chopped garlic, a teaspoon chopped parsley, six heads sliced, canned mushrooms and the same amount small glazed onions, Mix gently and cook on the range for five minutes more. Remove the bunch of herbs. Skim the fat from the surface of the same. Dress on a hot dish. Arrange twelve heart-shaped bread croutons around and serve.
A classic brown hare stew in the chasseur (hunter's) style, written for a professional kitchen where broth, tomato sauce and glazed onions were already standing by. The main thing to fix is the timing.
- The hinge: cooking timeThirty-five minutes will not tenderize a wild hare, which is dense, sinewy dark meat. Expect 1.5 to 2 hours of gentle covered braising at 325F, adding the mushrooms and glazed onions in the last 15 minutes so they keep their shape.
- Moderate ovenConventionally around 350F; for a long braise 325F is steadier. The liquid should barely tremble, not boil.
- A gillHalf a cup, so half a cup of claret and half a cup of tomato sauce, plus a cup (half pint) of broth. That is modest liquid for a long braise, top up with hot stock as needed to keep the pieces mostly submerged.
- ClaretPeriod shorthand for red Bordeaux. Any dry, moderately tannic red works; the wine is there to cut the richness of the pork and ham.
- Procuring a hareWild hare is a specialty or game-dealer item, sold whole and often already hung. A 5-6 lb hare yields the right amount. Farmed rabbit substitutes but is much milder and far quicker to cook, roughly 45 minutes, and it will not give the dark, gamey sauce the recipe assumes.
- "Six heads" of mushroomsSix whole canned mushroom caps, sliced, or about a cup. Fresh cremini browned separately in butter is a straight improvement, since the canned product was chosen for shelf life.
- Small glazed onionsPeeled pearl or small boiling onions cooked in butter, a little sugar and stock until the liquid reduces to a shiny coating. Made separately, then folded in at the end.
- Salt pork and raw hamAn ounce of salt pork is a large-dice lardon or two; the raw ham is prosciutto or an unsmoked cured ham. Both are seasoning, not bulk, so allow for their salt before adding the full teaspoon and a half.
- Serving and yieldThe recipe gives no yield, but a medium hare and twelve croutons suggest roughly four to six. The heart-shaped croutons are white bread cut with a cutter and fried in clarified butter, traditionally dipped point-down in chopped parsley.
Civet comes from the French cive, an old word for onion, and originally described a game stew heavy with onions and thickened at the last moment with the animal's own blood, which gives the sauce its near-black gloss. This version has been recast for a hotel kitchen: the blood is dropped, flour and a ready-made tomato sauce do the thickening, and canned mushrooms stand in for whatever the market offered. Chasseur, the hunter's garnish of mushrooms, wine and herbs, was one of the standard escoffier-era finishes that a cook could apply to almost any brown braise, and its appearance here marks the recipe as belonging to the professional repertoire rather than to farmhouse cooking.